They say even a stopped watch is accurate twice a day, but John Dvorak is more like a clock that’s about five hours and twenty-some minutes late. You know everything he says is always wrong, and you can usually figure things out by discounting his typical error, but it’s irritating to have to deal with all that unnecessary nonsense.

Dvorak Gets Podcasting Wrong.

Dvorak ranted about podcasting back in 2004, complaining about “the next big thing” by writing a screed that started off with the pronouncement: “Too bad it's a kludge that doesn't work as advertised unless you have a Macintosh and an iPod.”

Inviting his PC Magazine audience to explain things to him, Dvorak asked, “since the world consists of 95 percent PC users, how does all this really work?”

Yes he actually wrote that, leaving it uncertain as to whether he meant to say ‘users of 95% of the world's PCs,’ or simply that he and other PC users were missing some critical 5% that leaves them helplessly befuddled and behind the times.

“You have to wonder how long the trendy, overhyped iPod will dominate the portable music player market,” he wrote. “I suspect that once people figure out that it's an overpriced toy, they'll come to their senses.”

Dance Monkey, Dance.

Of course, Dvorak was just doing what PC Mag paid him to do: fill space with blather that attempted to upset people and create controversies that might generate traffic. How about some broad generalizations that paint minorities as the cause of our problems, Dvorak? Sure thing:

“The first thing that has to happen, though, is for the technology to be wrested from the Macheads and the James Lipton wannabes and given to the Windows-Linux community, where it will do some good.”

Wow, anyone who can write "the Windows-Linux community" and continue to get work as a tech columnist must have some scandalous blackmail photos of the editors at PC Mag. In fact, it sounds suspiciously like that entire line was lifted from Mein Kampf.

No wonder the Digg population is so stupid: Dvorak has brainwashed these PC kids with his non-stop jackassery for decades, publishing endless propaganda that blames Mac users for the incompetence of Microsoft.

Now Get Off the Stage.

Who could grow up reading this kind of trash and not be left embittered and incensed that Apple was somehow the cause of every problem within the PC world? What else explains the knee jerk hostility against Mac users?

Dvorak and his cranky act--a poorly done, witless imitation of Andy Rooney--are really just tiresome, just like the gluttonous Windows consumption he preaches to be the real solution to the problems that Windows itself created.

If Dvorak or anyone at PC Mag had any real insight into the tech industry, they would realize that the money to be made in selling off their own credibility pales in comparison to the value created by simply telling the truth.

If Dvorak had any balls, he'd have asked why Microsoft didn't deliver iTunes and podcasting, and why 95% of the world--his readers included--were so complacent about being lead along like sheep that they couldn't be bothered with obtaining better tools for themselves.

Anyone using “I was following the 95% majority” as an excuse for being stupid and stuck with crap that doesn’t really work can't crow about Mac users being ‘sheep in a cult’ without looking really foolish.

Perhaps the real cult is being run by those stirring up bitter FlavorAid to distract from the painful reality that they have nothing really interesting to say, while inciting devotion to a leader who doesn’t even have good ideas.

Hang up the Phone.

Is it any surprise that three years later, Dvorak is again bashing the iPhone, using the same ham-fisted propaganda tools?

Having written for too many years about a consumer PC market he fails to grasp, he now portrays himself as an expert in the mobile industry, something he's never even pretended to know anything about before.

“There is no likelihood that Apple can be successful in a business this competitive,” Dvorak writes, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Apple has in the last half decade yanked the rug under the 800 lb gorilla, stolen its music bananas, tied up its monopoly expansion strategy, and now stands with its foot on Microsoft's throat.

Nobody can even mention Vista without bringing up Apple’s Tiger from two years ago, and nobody can talk about the Zune without smirking. Steve Ballmer’s out of chairs to throw around.

Apple can't compete? Dvorak, you need to think about Ed Colligan before offering your opinion about the iPhone. When's the last time you said anything that was right, anyway?

What Dvorak didn’t get in 2004 was that podcasting would be key to the future of television. Ironically, Dvorak’s sensationalist antics were exposed in a video segment recorded by Dave Winer, a pioneer and early proponent of RSS and podcasting.